1. Field of the invention
The present invention relates to a structure of a rear part of a vehicle body and more particularly to a structure including a pocket provided on a floor panel for accommodating a vehicle spare tire assembly therein and a reinforcement member covering an opening of the pocket.
2. Discussion of prior art
Generally, a vehicle spare tire assembly (hereinafter, referred to as just xe2x80x9cspare tirexe2x80x9d) is accommodated in a pocket having a predetermined depth and formed in a rear part of a floor panel of a vehicle. Some of station wagon type or one box type vehicles have a plurality of seat rows arranged in a longitudinal direction of a passenger compartment thereof. Accordingly, sometimes the pocket comes under rearmost seat rows. The rearmost seats, in general, are detachable from a vehicle body for the purpose of bringing the spare tire out or for changing layouts of the passenger compartment. Further, the rearmost seats are secured to a reinforcement member extending in the widthwise direction of the vehicle and the reinforcement member is rigidly connected to the vehicle body.
According to the aforesaid rear body structure, there is a fear (drawback) that the spare tire is pushed out of the pocket and injures passengers sitting on the rearmost seat.
Further, since the rearmost seat integrally includes the reinforcement member extending in the widthwise direction of the vehicle, it is difficult to divide the rearmost seat into left and right ones and therefore the seat has a large volume and a large weight, this leading to a difficulty in installing or displacing the seat and providing restrictions in designing the seat.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a rear body structure of a vehicle capable of protecting passengers when the vehicle has a rear end collision and to provide a light weight seat having a variety (versatility) of designs.
To achieve the object, a rear body structure comprises a reinforcement member hingedly connected with a floor panel and covering at least a part of an opening of a pocket for accommodating a spare tire to prevent the spare tire from moving, a seat fixing section provided on the reinforcement member for detachably fixing the seat and a seat belt anchoring section provided on the reinforcement member for anchoring an end portion of a seat belt.